Archive of Our Own

Buck knows the rules, he does: No talking after lights-out. But he can't help it.

“Hey— Can I be vulnerable with you guys?”

Hen lets out a sigh from across the room, the first noise in hours. “I wish you wouldn't.”

“Is this going to turn into an impromptu therapy sesh?” Chimney says. “Because I'll wake Cap up.”

Ravi gives an open-mouthed snore as his response. Though, if he were awake, he’d probably just laugh at Buck.

Bobby says from his cot, arms crossed and eyes closed, looking like a man holding vigil, or maybe a vampire, “Guys, be nice. Buck, you can always be vulnerable with us. What's on your mind, kid?”

Buck clenches his hands and all his toes. He finds a spot on the speckled ceiling and focuses on it. He takes a breath, and—

“I think I want a baby.”

It all started when they clocked in for their 48-hour. Buck had barely gotten the first pot of coffee on when his phone buzzed three consecutive times in his pocket.

Eddie 🚒👨🎖
Morning Buck! Have a safe shift. Chris is missing you BTW. Call him later?

Mads (sister)
sry its early….jee keeps asking 2 watch little mermaid……did we leave the tape at ur place

Kameron
look buck! he's finally growing into that nose of yours 😁
[IMAGE]

Buck told Eddie he’d call Christopher when he got out of school later, then gave Maddie the OK to look for Jee-yun’s The Little Mermaid DVD, which he thought he last saw on his coffee table.

He stared at Kameron’s message, though. He stared at the picture of her and Connor’s little boy, at his blond curls and nose that’s just too big for his little face. He’ll be 2 in a few weeks, and Buck is almost glad that they moved out to Oakland to be closer to Kameron’s parents. Just far enough away that not going to the birthday party will have a believable excuse. They’d invited him last year and he barely made it to the smash cake before he was asking Tommy to take him home. (Which— Inviting Tommy was a mistake in itself; it turned into a whole thing.)

Another text came through while he was formulating a response.

The Great and Powerful Denny Wilson
duuuuuuude can u take me and mara to lazertag this weeknd mom & mama wont care i swear lol

“Morning, Buck. Everything okay?”

With a sigh, Buck tossed his phone onto the counter, having given Denny a thumbs-up but otherwise leaving Kameron's message alone. He turned to Bobby with a smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes.

“Peachy, Cap. Coffee? I'm finally trying that fruity stuff Rav brought from home. It smells good.”

“That it does. It smells like cherry.” Bobby leaned a hip against the counter, and Buck could feel his eyes on him. “You sure you're alright? You look a little melancholy.”

Buck’s phone buzzed against the counter and he let out a breath that was more frustrated than he'd intended. He snatched it up.

Connor
Look at that honker bro hahaha. Wonder who he got it from (Spoiler: not me) 🤣
[IMAGE]

The same picture. That same nose.

Buck laughed humorlessly and slammed his phone face-down.

“Melancholy? Me? Never. I'm fine! Better than fine. I just— I'm tired. I need to caffeinate.”

He yanked the pot out of the machine, effectively sloshing steaming hot coffee all over the counter and his knuckles. He swore and set the pot on the bare counter, then swore again, picked it up, and shoved it back into the machine hard enough that it knocked into the wall.

Bobby watched the whole thing with his eyebrows creating a fissure in the middle of his forehead.

They really need to invest in a Keurig.

The rest of the team clamoring up the stairs broke the sudden silence, and Buck occupied himself with cleaning his mess. Bobby reached a hand out, and he thought he was going for his red knuckles, but he picked up Buck's phone instead.

“Ah,” he said when he saw the picture. He locked Buck's phone and set it down gently, out of harm’s way. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Buck bit out, and immediately regretted it. Luckily, no one else seemed to have heard.

“Good morning, gentlemen!” Chimney crowed as he reached the loft first. “Would either of you care to see a photograph of my son?”

A sonogram was handed to Bobby, whose face turned soft. He smiled warmly at Chimney.

“He’s beautiful, Chim. Congratulations.”

He held the glossy black-and-white photo out for Buck, watching him closely, always watching him. Like he was a newspaper crossword puzzle that needed solving. Buck took it. HAN, MADDIE it read across the top. The corners were soft and curling like it'd been handled a lot. Buck willed his face to do something similar to Bobby's.

“I'm happy for you, Chim. Really. He—he looks like he's growing really well.”

“Yes, sir, Buckaroo.” Chimney snatched the sonogram back just as Buck was trying to see if this baby, too, had the Buckley nose. “Ten fully-developed fingers, ten fully-developed toes, no more, no less.”

“I think that's a Johnny Cash song,” Ravi quipped as he squeezed in beside Buck. He took an audible whiff. “Hey, my coffee! Everyone's been avoiding trying it like the plague.”

“At least we think he only has ten fingers,” Chimney mused. “I mean, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he has more…”

Hen hummed and slotted herself between Buck and Ravi. Buck got pushed back another step, closer to Bobby.

“Some cats have six toes,” she said. Her and Ravi briefly fought over who got the World's Best Firefighter mug. Ravi won and he poured his coffee first. “Oh, hey, Buck, if Denny texts you about going to laser tag— ignore him. He got a D+ on his algebra test. He's not going anywhere this weekend.”

“At least it was a plus,” Ravi offered.

Chimney groaned as he stuck the sonogram to the fridge. “Aw, man, me and Maddie helped him study for a week for that!”

Buck felt the sudden urge to get away. He wasn’t sure why, but the kitchen was starting to feel too crowded. Too hot. His T-shirt was suddenly too tight at his neck like he’d outgrown it between the house and the station.

He clapped his hands and began backing up, step by step, leaving his phone where it was.

“I’m, uh— I’ll be right back,” he said. “Save me some coffee, huh?”

He flew down the stairs two at a time, aware of the silence following him to the ground level and the eyes peering over the glass barrier. He disappeared to the lockers and dropped himself onto one of the benches. His legs were tingling and his chest felt tight, and he thought to himself, What is happening to me now?

Different scenarios were flicking through Buck’s mind like a View-Master or a Rolodex—the pulmonary embolism after his leg, the dissociation when Gerrard was laying into him; a highlight reel of Evan Buckley’s greatest hits—when there was a knock.

The person that came in to sit down next to him wasn’t the person it usually is. Wasn’t the person Buck was hoping it would be. He let his eyes fall shut as an unfair disappointment washed over him.

“You know,” Bobby started, his presence the wrong sort of warm. He handed Buck the World’s Best Firefighter mug, the coffee inside made just the way he likes it, “it might not be the same as your experience, but I was feeling a similar way when me and Athena first started seeing each other, especially when Michael was still around. Being a step-parent is never easy—"

Buck’s heart shot up into his throat. “I’m not the step-dad, I’m the dad.”

Bobby’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline. “Okay, bad analogy, that’s my fault. Not to be blunt, Buck, but you’re neither. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Buck set the coffee on the floor and leaned his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands. “Yes, I understand that. I wouldn’t have been Connor and Kameron’s donor if I didn’t understand that.” He groaned. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Cap. I thought I got over all of this, I just— I don’t know. I’ve been sort of off-kilter since—"

Since Christopher moved back in with Eddie, is what he didn’t get to say, because that’s when the tones went off, signaling the start of a very long, very busy day.

That first call saw the 118 freeing a sixth-grader from the confines of his own gym locker, and he cried for ten minutes in Buck's arms while they waited for his mother to show up.

When she finally did, distracted in her pantsuit but thankful all the same, she’d said to Buck after peeling her son off his hip, “You must be a great father.”

All he could do was smile and tip his helmet. On the ride back to the station, Hen kept calling him Papa Buck. Bobby, his eye still turned on Buck, joked, “If you’re going to bully him, Hen, why don’t you just shove him in his gear locker?”

“No doors,” Ravi said sadly. “It wouldn’t be as fun.”

“You were shoved in lockers as a kid, weren’t you, Ravi?” Hen asked in a faux-sympathetic voice, and Ravi gave her the finger.

Chimney laughed from up front. “Buck wouldn’t fit anyway. He’s built like a brick shithouse.”

The rig erupted in a tinny, off-key rendition of “Brick House”, and usually Buck would join in, or whip out his phone to send a video to Eddie, but he’d left his phone at the station, and his hands were shaking too much, anyway. He didn’t know why his hands were shaking.

They were only at the station for fifteen minutes, just long enough to use the bathroom and put the second pot of coffee on, when the bell rang again: A teenager playing hooky had climbed a utility pole to rescue a stray cat, which had long since been caught by animal control. The teenager, though, remained stuck 30 feet up.

“Net’s too small for her,” animal control joked when they pulled up to the scene with the ladder truck. The girl, sixteen or seventeen, was sitting on one of the cross arms of the utility pole smoking a cigarette, her feet resting on the transformer. Buck was chosen to go up in the bucket to get her.

“Uh, hey, you really shouldn’t be smoking,” he said when he reached her.

She took a drag. “Why, ‘cause I’m a kid?”

“Uh, heh, no— Because you’re sitting on a very flammable utility pole.”

The girl looked at him for a moment, then flicked her smoldering cigarette over the edge. Hen and Chimney both jumped to grind it out when it hit the ground, and their helmets knocked together like something out of a screwball comedy.

Buck was still looking down when the girl jumped into the bucket with him.

“Whoa!” he said, grabbing her by the waist as the entire bucket bounced. “You should wait until I get the harness on you! You could’ve gotten seriously hurt!”

The girl laughed in his face, her breath smelling like menthol and strawberries. “Sorry, Dad.”

As he was buckling her into the harness, Buck noticed that her left hand curled back behind her, and she was favoring one of her legs. He also noticed her posture.

It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Do you have cerebral palsy?”

The girl looked at him, suspicious, cautious. “How’d you know?”

“My, uh— friend’s kid has it.” They began to be lowered down at Buck’s signal. “His looks a little different, but we’ve met a lot of people over the years with CP. I know it comes in all shapes and sizes.”

The girl brought her left hand forward and held it to her chest, torqued at an angle that looked like it should be painful but Buck knew it probably wasn’t. “Yep. I can climb up a telephone pole but can’t climb down. I also can’t serve a freaking volleyball.”

“Is that why you’re not at school today?”

She laughed into his shoulder. “Just skipping Phys. Ed. I’ll be back for third period, promise.”

They reached the ground and Buck unhooked the girl from her harness and helped her out as much as she allowed herself to be helped, which wasn’t a lot; another similarity to Christopher. His heart ached and he wasn’t sure why.

“You know, you should let us check you out instead. Be back for fourth period?”

She pulled another cigarette from a crushed pack with her teeth and patted Buck on the chest. “Thanks but no thanks, Dad. Appreciate you guys getting me down! Gotta run.”

They watched as she mounted a scooter that was resting against the base of the utility pole and set off down the road. Ravi scratched the back of his neck and said, “Huh.”

Hen grabbed one of Buck’s shoulders and shook it. “Papa Buck returns for the second call in a row! I think that’s going to be the theme for today. Let’s start a pool.”

“You guys will bet on anything,” Bobby said with a bemused smile.

Hen was definitely right; three more calls came in before they could make it back to the station, and all of them involved kids in some way or another. Buck was even called Mom by accident at one point.

The betting pool was growing, and the universe was laughing at Buck.

“Alright, spill, Buckley.”

Hen collapsed onto the couch at Buck’s side. The third pot of coffee was brewing, and they were all hoping it would finish before the bell rang again.

“Cap said you were feeling off-kilter. He was a little concerned because he didn’t think you knew what that word meant.”

Buck laughed and shoved her with his shoulder. She shoved back, harder. Then the laugh died in his chest, and he sighed.

“Chris moved in with Eddie.”

Hen did a good job at keeping her face neutral. “That’s…good, right? Isn’t that why Eddie went out there in the first place?”

Another sigh. Tingling hands, tingling legs, tight chest. Maybe he’s on the verge of a panic attack. He hasn’t had a panic attack in a while. He’s probably overdue for one.

“It’s great, Hen. I’m happy for them. I just…”

“Words, Buck.”

“I think I’m jealous.” It was out before he could think about it, but it made sense. Buck has always been a jealous person by nature. Hen was quiet at his side, and he chanced a glance at her. “Is that bad?”

She smiled and threw an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close. “Not all jealousy is bad, Buck. You miss your kid!”

The tuning pegs in his chest were turned another notch and the ache became a fraction worse. “My kid?”

Hen opened her mouth—

And the bell rang.

Once they were stuffed into the rig, Chimney manning the ambulance behind them, Maddie informed them on the other end of Bobby’s headset that they were on their way to a small kitchen fire at a daycare.

The same daycare that Jee-yun attended.

Buck was out first when they got there, his heart lodged behind his Adam’s apple and his stomach a hollow pit. The front lawn was littered with tiny, colorful beings, and Buck spotted his niece in the arms of one of the daycare workers, clutching her Little Mermaid DVD to her chest like a Teddy Bear.

“Uncle Buck! Fire!” she said as he scooped her up into his own arms.

“Oh, I know, baby girl, I got you.”

“Jee!”

Chimney came jogging across the lawn and Buck passed Jee-yun over to her dad. Buck didn’t miss the way her little hands clung to his turnouts for half a second.

“Oh, thank you, Papa Buck.” Chimney planted a big, wet, probably minty, kiss to the center of Jee-yun’s giggling face. “There’s my girl. Any boo-boos?”

“Riiight here!” She pointed to her cheek and Chimney kissed her there, then her forehead when she pointed there, too.

“Alright, Hen, Ravi, we’re going inside. Put out the fire, check for any stragglers. Buck, Chimney, you’re out here on the lawn administering oxygen and—"

A three-foot-nothing little girl wearing a blue Elsa dress held up her pointer finger to Bobby. He looked down his nose at her.

“—Band-Aids.”

The mass of toddlers began swarming around Buck and Chimney’s legs as soon as the other three went inside the building. A few tried to run out to the truck, and the sweaty, tired workers had to hold them back. The little girl in the Elsa dress, finger still held out, said to Chimney, “Is your name really Chimney?”

“No, it’s Daddy,” Jee-yun said as she wriggled from his arms.

“Uh—"

“Why is your name Chimney?” a little boy asked as he wandered over. He had a smear of soot on his nose but otherwise seemed okay.

“You’ll understand when you’re older, kid.”

“No, you won’t,” Buck said. He clapped his hands together, muffled from his gloves. “Alright! Everyone criss-cross applesauce, in the grass, come on.”

“The grass is wet! My butt is going to get wet!”

“Dominic, please just do as the nice fireman says,” one of the workers said. She was covered in sweat and soot, knees bent like they might soon give out, and Chimney pulled her aside to check her out first.

Dominic plopped down in the grass and put his chin in his hands.

For the next forty-five minutes, Buck took the weirdness he'd been feeling all morning, the jealousy or the anxiety or a sinister third thing, rolled it into a ball, and shoved it down deep. For the next forty-five minutes, he made sure everyone was getting enough oxygen while Chimney checked for burns, bumps, and bruises, and Jee-yun passed out Band-Aids to her friends that definitely did not need Band-Aids.

Zero injuries and zero damage to the daycare other than a scorched range in the kitchen, and they returned to the station with Jee-yun crawling from Chimney’s lap to Buck’s. Buck offered to go home with her, never one to pass up the opportunity to spend time with his niece, but Chimney had already told Maddie he was bringing her down to Dispatch; Sue was going to watch her for the rest of the day.

“Oh! That’s— That’s great. Sue loves her.”

“Yeah, and Jee’s been asking when she’s going to see Joshy again.” Chimney held her up Superman-style so she was face-to-face with Buck. “Say bye-bye to Papa Buck.”

Jee-yun grabbed Buck by the ears and pulled him forward so she could smack a kiss to the birthmark above his left eye, just like Maddie does.

“Bye, Papa Buck!”

A hand found its way to Buck’s shoulder when they were gone.

“Cap, I told you I’m fine—"

The hand belonged to Hen, having returned with the ambulance. She was smirking, but the edges looked a little sad, a little knowing. “If you’re itching to babysit that bad, me and Karen could really use a date night.”

Buck knocked her hand off with a breathy laugh.

“Or maybe the next call will have more kids for you to watch,” Ravi offered. His suspenders were hanging at his sides and he was munching on a Polly-O from the fridge. He was hungry, which meant Buck could start on lunch, which meant he could forget about the ball in his gut that was beginning to unravel, beginning to expand and rise like bread dough. “You’re really good with them. You know, I think in your past life you were a teacher, or something.”

Buck’s shaky legs propelled him upstairs to the kitchen. Behind him, Hen was saying, “Past life, huh? You believe in that stuff?”

“Yeah, I do, actually…”

Not bothering to change out of his boots or heavy pants, Buck threw an apron on without tying it and dumped a box of pasta into one of the skillets. His legs were starting to tingle again, like his circulation was being cut off. He browned the pasta and then emptied in a half-carton of chicken stock and tried not to think about it. Everyone made their way upstairs and sat dutifully at the table, hands washed, stomachs audibly growling. Chimney was back, and he’d brought Maddie with him. A quick lunch break, she’d said as Bobby pulled out the chair at the head of the table for her.

Butter, garlic, heavy cream. The baby was kicking, and she waved everyone over to feel.

Mozzarella, parmesan. It was getting hard to swallow.

Buck’s forgotten phone chimed once, twice. Three times.

“You’re popular, Papa Buck!” Ravi said.

“Papa Buck?”

“Forget it, Maddie.” Bobby, always the voice of reason. It pissed Buck off. “They’re just being mean.”

“Who’s being mean!” Chimney laughed. “He's like a dad without a kid.”

“Hey, now,” Hen warned.

Salt, pepper, more garlic.

Buck’s heartbeat in his ears drowned out the conversation, drowned out his phone pinging again. He found some Gruyère in the fridge and dumped it in. Hoped it was still good. This has to be more than just him missing Christopher. There has to be something seriously wrong with him.

Five bowls, five heaping ladles. He didn’t think he could stomach anything. Garnish. Sriracha on Maddie’s. Pregnancy craving, she has it on everything.

Arms lined with their scalding lunch, Buck turned.

And the tones went off.

The kitchen erupted in a collective groan that could’ve registered on a seismometer, and Buck’s entire body let go like a snapped rubber band. Maddie swooped in and helped him dump the bowls on the counter before he dropped them.

“Sorry we didn’t actually get to eat,” Chimney apologized as he kissed her briefly.

“Not me,” she said. “All of this will be gone by the time you guys get back. God, Buck, it smells so good.”

Buck nodded, shaking out his hands. She was looking at him, into him. Cocking her head.

“Evan?”

“Feel free to let yourself out when you need to get back, Maddie,” Bobby said, rubbing her shoulder as he flew by and down the stairs after Hen and Ravi. Chimney was next, Maddie following to see them all out, her concern for her brother already lost in the commotion of gearing up for a call.

“Don’t worry, no one will mind if I’m a little late. Linda might, though. I swear that woman—"

Her voice was lost in the rumble of the engines, both ladder truck and ambulance; a car going fifty over the limit down a residential street hit the curb and was launched into the second floor of a house. The family of four was home, and they needed the 118’s help.

Buck ignored his sister as he was the last to climb into the ladder truck. She waved them off, and he could see that familiar cleft between her eyebrows, even from there.

The family was fine, just a little shaken up. Two dads and their six-year-old twins, one boy, one girl. The driver, not so much.

Bobby asked Buck to distract the kids while they extracted the driver from his vehicle, and the parents agreed; they had already seen too much.

“Alright, guys, I got you,” Buck said when the kids were happily handed over while their parents got checked out by Hen.

The girl wanted to be held, and the boy buried his tiny fist in Buck’s pantleg. He gave them a tour of the ladder truck, keeping them on one side so their destroyed house and the Toyota Corolla hanging out of the bedroom window was hidden from view. He let them try on a pair of headsets, gave them shiny stickers with the LAFD logo on them, plopped them in the passenger seat together and told them about the last fire they put out and the last cat they rescued. By the time Buck returned them to their dads, their tears had dried on their cheeks and they were smiling.

“Thank you so much, uh— Officer?” one of the men said as the twins climbed up between them in the back of the ambulance.

“Just—just Buck.”

“Thank you, Buck,” the other man said, so warm that it made the back of Buck's eyes tingle. More tingling. He definitely needs to find himself a new therapist soon. Or maybe a GP.

Bobby was on the phone with Dispatch, asking for a coroner, and Buck still didn’t feel right, but at least the kids were smiling.

“Hey, Buck. I’ve been—texting you all day.”

Buck sat down on the couch and threw his feet up on the coffee table. He managed to take his boots off this time, and his feet were definitely thanking him. “You were texting me at school?”

“Well, it’s almost spring break. No one wants to—to be there.”

He sighed, making sure not to do it into the phone. “I’m sorry, Chris. It’s been a hell— Sorry. A heck of a day.”

Christopher laughed loudly, right into Buck’s ear. “You’re allowed to have a hell of a day around me, Buck. I’ll be in high school next year.”

Buck’s stomach clenched. He leaned his head back until he was staring at the ceiling. Christopher was going to be a freshman soon, his first year in the last few before college. God. He remembered when he graduated from the fifth grade, all big smiles and a few tears because I don’t wanna go to middle school!

“Buck? You—you there?”

Buck picked his head up when his neck started to hurt. “Yeah, buddy. I’m here.” A pause. “I miss you too, you know.”

Christopher hummed. “It’s weird not having you around. Like I only have one parent again, or something.”

Another clench. Buck’s feet slipped off the table and thumped against the floor. Hen and Chimney, playing cards at the dining table, looked over. Buck curled into the arm of the couch, away from them, away from their upticked eyebrows and their medical assessments from afar. He pressed the phone deeper into his ear, trying to get closer to Christopher, his voice. His kid.

A thought had come to Buck, then, one he didn’t dare let himself entertain when Christopher first moved to Texas, and one he almost did when Eddie followed behind.

It’s in my will, if I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.

What if something happened to Eddie out there? And Buck was here, 800 miles away?

Sure, being an Uber driver isn’t the most dangerous job in the world, but eventually Eddie’s going to get into El Paso Fire, and then what? Christopher had already lived with his grandparents for a few months, the same ones that tried to get Eddie to surrender him like a dog when Shannon left, so, really, who was Buck than just a name on a piece of paper?

If, God forbid, something were to happen to Eddie while Buck was in LA, it wouldn’t matter how hard he’d fight for Christopher; Helena and Ramon would win every time.

“Hey, cowboy, you still with us?”

Eddie’s voice, gentle but firm in Buck’s ear. He opened his eyes, sat up, tried to make himself look presentable despite the way his heart was thumping at the base of his throat and the fact that this was just an audio call and Eddie couldn’t actually see him. His stomach was starting to hurt, and he remembered suddenly that he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“Y-yeah, uh. Hey. Uh, what’s up?”

Eddie laughed, soft. “You were quiet for so long, Chris thought you fell asleep on him.”

“No, just—just thinking.”

“Well, stop that. I can hear the cogs turning all the way over here.”

All the way over there, 800 miles away.

It was out of Buck’s mouth before he could stop it. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Diarrhea of the mouth, his teachers used to call it.

“H-Have you thought about coming back? You know, now that things are better between you and Christopher?”

A sigh.

“Buck—"

The bell rang.

Hurried goodbyes, a “Be safe” from Eddie, a “Yeah, you too” from Buck, and he was suited up and in the engine for what would be the last call of the night.

The call that would bring everything to a head.

“I don’t know what to do, I called the owner but he doesn’t have a spare key. He told me to call the maintenance line in the morning, but—"

A groan from behind the bathroom door, and the gas station attendant threw his hands in his hair. His own key was still in the lock, snapped right in half.

“We obviously can’t wait until the morning!”

Bobby put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “Sir, it’s going to be alright. Why don’t you head back out and wait on that line that’s forming.”

Making a distressed noise, the attendant hurried from the tight back hallway, which had barely enough room for five hulking firefighters, their med bags, and a gurney as it was.

Hen, at the front of the group, rapped her knuckles on the bathroom door. The unisex sign was hanging on by a single nail and the knob was loose from the attendant's previous attempts to get in.

“Ma'am, is everything okay in there?”

Another groan. They shared a look.

“OD, you think?” Chimney asked, smacking his gum and pulling his gloves tighter.

Bobby stared at the door with his eyebrows drawn. “No, I don't think so, Chim,” he mused.

Ravi shifted, stepping on Buck’s foot. Buck steadied him with a hand on his back. “That guy doesn't know anything?”

“Didn't see her go in,” Chimney said with a shrug. “Just heard her howling like a wounded animal, tried to get in, couldn't, and called 9-1-1.”

“Maybe it’s another tapeworm,” Buck said, and Bobby raised an eyebrow at him.

“Will you guys shut up?” Hen said, flicking her hand back at them, ear pressed to the door. “Ma'am? This is LAFD. Are you able to unlock the door for us?”

They waited with baited breath for an answer, and just when they thought they weren't getting one and Buck was readying his doorframe-splitting kick, a feeble voice found its way through the silence.

“I can't get up.” She sounded young, and like she might've been crying. Definitely not an overdose.

With those words, everyone instinctually backed away, giving Buck the room he needed. He got into position, adjusting his pants, steeling himself.

“Alright, m-ma’am? I’m gonna need you to get back as far as you can.”

They waited a beat. No answer, not even another groan, but Buck could hear the faint sound of shuffling and he nodded over his shoulder.

“I’m coming in!”

He took a breath, and with a single well-placed stomp, the bathroom door was flying open in a shower of dust and splinters.

A girl, barely out of high school, Buck guessed, sat pressed against the far wall, wedged between the sink and the toilet. A messenger bag was thrown haphazardly into the opposite corner, its contents spilling out across the sticky tiled floor. Her jacket was spread out beneath her and her legs were drawn to her chest.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she said in a small voice. Her hair stuck to her neck and forehead with sweat, and she was as pale as the porcelain.

Hen and Chimney jumped into action, setting their bags on the floor and getting down to her level. Bobby manned the doorway like a sentry, Ravi hovering close by, ready to bring the gurney in when needed. Buck used the wrong foot to break the door down, and his leg was throbbing. It matched the rest of him.

“Are you sick?” Chimney asked, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head.

“No,” the girl whimpered, curling in on herself further. Buck’s heart was doing something funny in his chest at the sight. His palms itched to help her. “It hurts.”

“Where does it hurt, sweetheart?” Hen asked gently. She placed a gloved hand on one of the girl’s bare knees.

“Everywhere,” she said. “But mostly my stomach.”

“Did you eat something funky at school?” Chimney asked. “Because I know how school lunches—"

The girl pitched forward with an ear-splitting cry. Buck took a startled step back, stepping into the pile of personal belongings surrounding the girl’s bag. A pair of underwear got caught on his boot, pink cotton stained red.

“Uh— G-Guys?”

He looked back over. Hen had both her hands on the girl’s knees and Chimney was shining his pen light up her skirt. Their faces were almost as white as hers.

“Oh,” Hen breathed.

“Not a tapeworm.”

“What?” the girl said.

“Baby!” Ravi cheered, fists in the air. Bobby looked back at him and Ravi lowered his arms.

“What?” the girl said again, fainter this time. “A— What? I can't—"

Hen brushed her thumbs over her knees, scabby like a kid's should be, to soothe her. “Sweetheart, can you tell me your name?”

“Iliana,” she whimpered. She tried to close her legs, to hide herself, but Hen wouldn’t let her. Her plaid skirt pooled around her hips. “What’s happening?”

“What’s happening, Iliana, is you’re in labor,” Chimney said, already rifling through his med bag for all the appropriate tools. “And this baby is coming now.”

“I can’t be pregnant!” Iliana cried. The muscles in her neck and a vein in her temple throbbed with the effort of trying to hold back another contraction. “I get my period, and—and—"

The contraction overtook her anyway, nature running its course, and she let out what Buck would describe as a howl like a wounded animal. Hen gave her an external exam while Chimney gave an internal, and the rest of them watched, poised. Bobby’s hand was on his radio the whole time.

“Cryptic pregnancy,” Hen said as she worked, her gloved hands palpating Iliana’s sweater vest. “It means—"

“I can’t be pregnant!” she said again, when she was able.

“Well, you definitely are, kid.” Chimney took off his gloves with a snap! and sat back on his haunches. “And you’re fast on your way to becoming unpregnant. Can we call your parents?”

“I don’t have any,” Iliana said miserably, desperately. “I aged out of foster care in December and I’ve been staying at the WRC, but I don’t think they have room for me. I don’t— I can’t—"

Buck was moving before he knew it, getting down beside her and taking her hands in his. She let herself be held, barely even registering that there was another person at her side.

“Me and Alexander broke up months ago! He moved all the way to Florida!”

“Iliana,” Buck said gently, trying to get her attention.

“I don’t have a job, or—or any money, and I’m not eligible for scholarships or loans, I—"

“Iliana,” Buck tried again, squeezing harder.

Bobby, hand still on his radio, said, “I’m going to make a few calls. Ravi, watch the door.”

They both left the bathroom, closing the busted door behind them.

Iliana looked terrified.

“Hey.” Buck caught her eye. “We're here for you.”

Her face crumpled. Heartbreak, another contraction, all of the above, he wasn’t sure. “Just until your job is done,” she said bitterly, and, well, Buck couldn’t really fault her on that. Their job ends at the hospital doors, always has.

Iliana threw her head back against the wall with a groan and Hen and Chimney quickly put on another pair of gloves. Buck peeled his off so Iliana could feel the warmth of his hands and not more nitrile. She gripped them, hard.

“Alright, Iliana,” Hen said. “Any fears or reservations you have right now need to go, okay? Out the window. You hear me?”

Iliana looked from Buck to Chimney, eyes wide and eyebrows cocked. “Geez. Aye aye, Captain.”

Hen cracked a smile. “This isn’t my first cryptic pregnancy. I know just what to say to get you into the headspace that most women have nine months to get into.”

“It’s true,” Chimney agreed. “Hen’s a wizard at this shit. Oops.” He pointed to the school crest on Iliana’s sweater vest. “Our Lady of Peace, my bad.”

“I’m not religious,” Iliana said. Her grip on Buck’s hand suddenly became tighter. ”Fuck!”

“Time to get this show on the road, people,” Chimney said with a clap. “No prenatal care, no idea of a due date, let’s get this baby out and to the NICU, ASAP.”

Iliana didn’t want to move, couldn’t, but it was harder for them to squeeze between the toilet and the sink together than it was for them all to be out in the hallway. Buck let go of her hands so he could pull her out by the jacket she was sitting on.

“This is moving too fast,” she said, voice thick.

“It has to,” Hen and Chimney said at the same time.

They got her hooked up to some fluids, a pulse ox, draped a blanket over her lap so she wasn’t totally exposed. She was sweating badly, so Buck helped her out of her sweater vest and rolled the sleeves of her shirt up for her. Her wrists up to her inner elbows were a canvas of pink and white hatch marks, and Buck felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Okay— Head,” Chimney said, and Hen gave a brief, reassuring smile.

“Not breech,” she said. “That’s good.”

“Good,” Iliana said faintly, more repeating than agreeing.

“I need you to hook your hands behind your knees and pull your legs back,” Hen instructed. Iliana tried, but her hands were shaking too much and her skin was too slick with sweat. She let out a defeated noise that was half sob, half whimper. Jesus, she was so young.

Buck shucked off his bulky turnout coat and slotted himself behind her, gripping under her knees and pulling her legs back to where Hen and Chimney needed them. Iliana put her hands on his knees and dug her nails into the fabric of his pants.

“I got you,” Buck said into her ear, and she settled back into his chest. “I got you.”

Iliana sobbed again, tipping her head up so her hair tickled Buck’s nose. “I can’t do this!” she cried. “I can’t— I just wanted a Celsius!”

“Yes, you can,” Buck tried to reassure, but she wasn’t listening.

“Have any of you even done this before?”

“Uh,” Chimney let out a breathy laugh, “Buck and I don’t have the right parts, I’m afraid.”

Iliana looked to Hen desperately. “You?”

Hen held up her hands. “My wife and I adopted.”

Iliana groaned and sobbed and threw her head back into Buck’s chin. She was shaking, and so was he.

Hen said, “Alright, Iliana, on your next contraction I want you to push until I say stop. Can you do that?”

“I guess I fucking have to.”

“Attagirl.”

Buck felt her tense a few seconds later, and she leaned forward to start pushing. Buck followed, leaning with her, holding onto her legs like his life depended on it and whispering encouragements into her hair. Hen counted, Chimney beamed, Ravi, outside, told someone that the bathroom was occupied.

“…9, 10… Okay, stop and breathe.”

Iliana stopped and breathed in raggedly through her open mouth. Her head found a home against Buck’s collarbone.

“Have you guys—" A rough swallow. “You’ve delivered a lot of babies, at least? You know what you’re doing?”

“We know what we’re doing,” Hen assured. “And everyone here has kids, too.”

Buck licked his lips. “Well—"

“Yeah?” Iliana said. She began gearing up to push again. “H-How many.”

“I’ve got a little girl and a baby boy on the way,” Chimney said. He couldn’t hold back his smile, and Hen looked the same.

“I’ve got a boy and a girl as well. Denny and Mara. We’re hoping Mara’s adoption will go through soon. Foster failure,” she said with a small laugh. Options. She was giving Iliana options.

“Ooh, fuck.” She looked up at Buck briefly, eyes glossy and bloodshot. “You? What about you?”

Iliana gripped Buck’s knees harder as she pushed. It hurt, but Buck didn’t care. The thing in his chest overshadowed the pain.

“Um.” He wouldn’t let Hen catch his eye. “Chr-Christopher. Uh, h-he’s fourteen. Best damn kid I know. Funny. Resilient. He’s been through a lot.” He cleared his throat. “He’s in Texas with his dad.”

“You’re divorced and you’ve got a fourteen-year-old kid?” Iliana huffed. “You don’t look that old.”

No one laughed, no one said anything. Iliana pushed again and everyone’s focus shifted back to helping her, back to the job at hand. They had to make sure the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck, and they needed to watch out for shoulder dystocia, which Buck thinks is what happened with Christopher. He tried to remember to breathe along with her.

A thought: Eddie and Shannon were barely older than Iliana when they had Christopher.

It happened fast after that. Things became quiet and serious. Iliana sobbed and screamed her way to the finish line, warm against Buck’s front, a grounding point for the both of them, he was sure. His grip on her legs never wavered, her grip on his knees never loosened. Hen and Chimney were shoulder-to-shoulder and Buck watched the whole thing reflected on their faces.

Buck had been where Hen was, been where Chimney was, been in Ravi’s place and even Bobby’s, but never here. Never this vantage point, this close. When Hen lifted the tiny, bloody baby girl up to the gas station fluorescents, he’s not afraid to admit that he cried a little.

“Great job, Iliana, fantastic,” Chimney said as he stuck a bulb syringe first in the baby’s mouth, then her nose.

Hen laid the baby on Iliana’s chest, covered in cheese and slime and bright red blood, and Buck let go of Iliana’s thighs to cradle the baby’s bottom because she was too shocked to move her hands from his knees. Hen rubbed the baby’s back to get her to start crying, and when she did, quivering and piercing, Buck let out a wet laugh into Iliana’s hair.

“Wow,” he breathed. He’s traveled the country, even crossed the border down South, and yet this was his best view yet.

“It still hurts,” Iliana said as Buck held her baby against her.

“It’ll hurt for a while,” Chimney said, taking Hen’s place to clamp and cut the cord.

Iliana whimpered low in her throat, quiet enough that Buck was sure he was the only one to hear it. “Yeah.”

There wasn’t much blood, but still Iliana was in shock, shaking and silent, limbs turned to jelly. Hen wrapped the mewling baby in a space blanket while Chimney delivered the afterbirth. Soon after, Ravi was called in and he pushed the gurney into the bathroom, the wheels loud as they bounced over the uneven floor. Buck lifted Iliana easily into his arms and set her gently onto the bed, being sure to tuck her in, cover her up, keep her decent and warm on her short journey to the ambulance outside. He grabbed her bag and clothes on the way out, and used it as an excuse to ride with her to the hospital.

“Iliana! Great job in there, sweetheart. You’re a rockstar.” Bobby was beaming when they met up with him in the parking lot, the crinkles by his eyes deeper than usual. “My wife is a police sergeant, Athena Grant. She’ll be waiting for you at Cedars-Sinai.”

Iliana’s face was blank as they loaded her in.

Bobby and Ravi drove the truck back to the station while Chimney got behind the wheel of the ambulance, Hen in the back with Buck. The baby found its way into his lap when Iliana said she’d rather hold her bag, and he cradled her against his legs.

“The thermal wrap makes her look like a burrito,” Buck laughed.

Illiana said nothing. She pulled her sleeves down and faced away from them. Hen frowned while she checked her vitals. Physically, she was perfectly healthy.

“H-Hey, uh, Sergeant Grant is great,” Buck tried. “She’ll make things real easy for you. Plus, she, uh, knows a lot of people that could-could help you.”

Hen put her hand on Buck’s shoulder and he shifted his eyes back down to the baby, so small, barely the size of one of his thighs. A little underweight, definitely premature, but healthy. Strong. So gorgeous.

Newborns are always pale, but this one was already half a shade darker than Iliana, with jet-black hair and a tiny freckle near her left eye—

Buck squinted and leaned in. There was a smattering of freckles, actually, surrounding the tail-end of her nonexistent eyebrow. He swiped his thumb gently over the spot, but it wasn’t blood, wasn’t vernix. They were freckles, faint but there. They’ll probably get darker with time, grow with her.

An invisible hand wrapped itself around Buck’s throat, and they were silent the rest of the way.

When they reached Cedars-Sinai, the baby girl was fast asleep in Buck’s lap, exhausted from her journey from one life to the next, and he was reluctant to hand her over. Hen pried her gently from his arms, reassuring him as if he were the one that had just given birth to her that she’ll be fine, she’ll be safe. Their jobs are done.

No job had ever felt less done to Buck.

Hen gave the baby to a waiting nurse in bright pink scrubs and Crocs adorned with Care Bear charms, who whisked her away inside. Iliana was still clutching her bag to her chest when they unloaded her from the back of the rig. Under the hospital floodlights she looked pale and drawn, gaunt in the cheeks. She looked scared. She looked older than she did when they first got to her, but still so young.

Buck went to her.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he told her, trying and failing to catch her eye. Athena was lingering at the edge of his vision, out of uniform. “I promise.”

He took his coat off and draped it over her shoulders. It engulfed her, and probably wasn’t as comfortable as the blankets they gave her, nor the blankets they’d give her up in the maternity ward, but it was warm from his body and it gave him a reason to come back and see her; Bobby refused to give him new turnouts until he stopped losing or destroying the ones he had, so he had to come back for his coat. He had to come back.

Iliana looked at Buck like she was seeing him for the first time.

“Seriously,” he stressed when he finally caught her eye. “You’re gonna be okay. Y-Your baby, too.”

Her face crumpled like she was about to cry. “Thanks,” she said, so softly.

He kissed her on her sweaty forehead and watched as she was wheeled inside. Athena gave him a nod and a wink and disappeared in after her.

When Hen came back out a moment later with their gurney, he was still there, and his legs felt suddenly weak, like they were going to give out.

She caught him. “Alright, Buckaroo, let's get you back to the station. There's a bunk with your name on it. Mine, too. We’ve had a hell of a day.”

“Yeah,” he said, still looking towards the ambulance bay. “We did.”

Eddie called the minute they shut the station doors, like he knew they were—hopefully—in for the night.

Buck wanted a shower, wanted his sweats and a hoodie, wanted to crawl into his bunk and try and sleep the day off, but he clicked Accept anyway. His thumb has a mind of its own when it comes to FaceTime calls with Eddie.

His face filled the tiny screen of Buck’s phone, already smiling. He was in his pajamas, hair wet and hanging over his forehead. He needed a shave, too. Something fluttered in Buck’s stomach at the sight, the same flutter every time him and Eddie talked lately. He was too tired to figure out what it meant.

(He uses that excuse all too often.)

“Hey, Buck,” he said, setting his phone up on the coffee table and settling into his couch. He had a bowl of cereal and a blanket in his lap, and a bottle of beer sat on the side table at his elbow. Buck could really use a beer right now. “You look like hell. Rough shift?”

Buck kicked off his boots and collapsed into his own couch, the station’s couch, turning the TV onto something light and switching the volume off. Eddie’s voice wrapped around his muscles and shot down his spine, turning him warm and pliant. A familiar balm. Buck even managed a smile.

“Not really rough,” he said with a sigh that came from his toes. “Just-just a lot. You know?”

Eddie nodded vigorously as he spooned Frosted Flakes into his mouth. Buck watched milk slide down his chin. “I know. Had a guy take his dollar tip away when he found out I lived in LA. Think his ex-wife was from Pasadena, or something.”

Buck Venmoed Eddie a dollar, who laughed a second later.

“Thanks, I’ll put it in Christopher’s college fund.”

“No problem.”

They fell quiet. The team puttered around the kitchen, grabbing drinks and snacks and heading to bed. Eddie finished his cereal and his beer and threw his feet up beside his phone. His sweats were riding up, and Buck got a clear shot of a single hairy ankle.

Eddie watched him, all dark eyes and pursed lips. Buck usually liked when Eddie would watch him, pay attention to him. He liked when Eddie saw him, but right then? He almost wished they were on an audio call instead. He was tired of everyone watching him.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Buck scratched his thumbnail against the arm of the couch, the scritch-scritch-scritch filling the silence. “We helped with a delivery today. Iliana. She was still in high school. Didn’t know she was pregnant.”

Eddie sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. “Poor kid. Everything go well?”

“Yeah, she-she did great. Did the whole thing in a Shell bathroom.” A pause. Buck thought of her little burrito baby and suddenly missed the weight of her in his lap. “It was a girl.”

Eddie hummed. He was assessing the situation, trying to figure out the right thing to say. Easily, he said, “If I was there, I would’ve gotten us all cigars for the ride back.”

Buck hummed back. Always the right thing.

“You’re down, why? You love kids, especially babies.”

I think that’s the problem, he doesn’t say.

Buck looked down at himself, at his hands that were shaking ever-so-slightly like there was a live current running through him, his pants that were dusty and stained from the day. His shirt was damp with Iliana’s sweat and his own. He suddenly felt very…empty. Cold. He wished he had his weighted blanket from back at the house. Wished he had his niece to hold. Wished a lot of things.

Buck scrubbed a hand over his face. God, he was tired.

“I dunno, Eddie. Just feeling kind of off lately.”

“Like you’re getting sick?”

Buck shrugged. He wished he could explain it, but he didn’t know where to start. All he knew was this: “I miss you guys.”

Eddie sank back into his couch, just a bit. His eyebrows turned up in the middle. “I know you do. I— Me too.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he clamped his mouth shut and ran a hand through his damp hair instead.

Buck yawned and kept his eyes shut. “Tell me about your day,” he said, mouth growing lazy. “Start with your worst riders firs’.”

Eddie cleared his throat and started with his worst rider first. Buck didn’t hear any of it.

He’s not sure how long he nodded off, but suddenly Hen was there in his space, pretending like she wasn’t checking his temperature with the back of her hand by brushing his greasy hair off his forehead.

“Morning, sunshine,” she said when he squinted at her. A sleep mask sat above her eyes. “Wanna come to bed with me? This couch is hell to sleep on. Trust me, I know.”

Buck let her pull him up, and both his leg and his back groaned in protest. He did, too, and Hen let him take a second to gather his bearings. She fished his phone from between the cushions. Eddie was still on FaceTime, and he was fast asleep on his end. He’d moved to his bed at some point, taking Buck with him. His face was close to the phone, the screen lighting up his nose and part of his forehead.

“Goodniiight, Eddie,” Hen whispered, and ended the call.

Everyone was asleep when they reached the bunk room, and Hen was out before her head hit her pillow, but Buck stayed awake.

For hours.

And hours.

He waited until his phone told him it was sunrise before he said anything.

The lights flick on with a hollow thunk and Buck hisses. He presses his face deep into his pillow. There’s no reason they can’t do this in the dark.

Bobby is the first to speak up.

“A baby is a lot of responsibility, Buck,” he says from across the room, like Buck just told him that he was thinking of getting a dog. His sleep-deprived brain wonders if Helena and Ramon said something similar when Shannon got pregnant.

He peeks an eye open. Bobby is standing near the light switch with his hands on his hips, sweats slung low, sleep shirt twisted. He looks mildly disheveled and more than a bit concerned, like maybe Buck has finally lost his mind. Maybe he has.

Hen, sitting up in bed now and pulling off her sleep mask, says simply, steadily, “He knows that, Cap.”

“Yeah,” Buck says. His voice cracks and he presses his face deeper into his pillow.

“Hold on.” Chimney's bunk squeaks as he throws his legs over the edge. “Who are you having a baby with?”

“Not Tommy, I hope,” Ravi says, also awake, and the air in the room turns electric for a brief second.

Buck almost wishes he didn’t say anything, but maybe this is it, maybe this is why he’s felt so weird all day, since Eddie told him Christopher moved back in with him— He wants a baby. He’s not just jealous, he’s yearning.

And he's definitely not yearning to have a kid with Tommy, of all people.

The room faces Buck head-on and the attention makes the back of his neck grow warm. He stays laying down. He stays vulnerable.

“No,” he says to the drop ceiling, dusty and yellowing in the corners. The only space in the station that hasn't been updated over the years. “I mean, I-I don't need a partner, right? Single people have kids all the time. Right?”

“It’s definitely harder,” Hen says slowly. She looks like she wants to say more, like Eddie on FaceTime last night, but she swallows whatever it is and says instead, “But not impossible. Karen and I could help you. If this is what you really want.”

Buck flicks his eyes over to Bobby, not meaning to, and the room turns their attention on him. Their captain. Bobby looks at no one but Buck.

“Are you serious about this?”

It reminds Buck of when Josh asked him if he was in love with Tommy. Buck had blanched then, stuttered. He remembers making a face that you shouldn’t make when talking about your partner. But now, the answer is clear and obvious, sitting on his tongue like it’s been there all along.

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up with some effort. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Bobby looks at him a second longer, then nods and drops his hands to his sides. “Then we have your back. Anything you need, kid, we’re your village.”

Something small unclenches in Buck’s chest and he finds himself smiling, his first true smile since the start of their shift. “Thanks, guys.”

“Well,” Chimney says, scratching at the tattoo on his chest, “I’d say I’m surprised, but Cap would make me go to confession for lying.”

Bobby laughs, and the air in the room settles.

“Yeah, your biological clock has been ticking since the moment we met you,” Hen says. She reaches over and grabs Buck’s foot, jostling his leg by the toes. An echo of an ache races up to his knee. “We’re still surprised you never adopted that baby we rescued from that pipe. Remember that?”

Bobby laughs again, softer this time. He looks off into the distance, cheeks round and red. “You were something special then. I didn’t know you had a paternal bone in your body until that call, and didn’t believe it until Christopher came into the picture.”

“And now look at you, Papa Buck.” Chimney ruffles Buck’s hair on his way across the bunk room to where he’d piled up a clean outfit the night before. He strips despite everyone’s protests.

“You know,” Ravi says as he gets out of bed. “I’m gonna be honest. I thought Chris was your kid for the longest time. He looks just like you.”

You two have an adorable son.

“Yeah,” Buck says. “I get that a lot.”

“Alright, come on,” Bobby claps. “We can discuss this more over breakfast. I’m thinking toad-in-the-hole for everyone.”

Ravi fist-pumps, and the bunk room clears out.

Chimney stays behind.

“I agree with Hen,” he says, hands going into his pockets, now fully dressed for the day. “You’ve definitely always been very child-focused, but where did this come from? Why now?”

Buck plays with his fingers, digging dirt out from under his thumbnail. He really needs a shower.

“I guess I realized with-with Eddie gone that I miss Christopher more than an— uh, an uncle probably should.”

Chimney lets out a puff of air that’s half laugh, half scoff. “Uncle. You know, I’m pretty sure you’ve been there for that kid more than his own mother ever was.”

“Hey,” Buck says sharply, looking up at him. “Come on, man, leave Shannon alone.”

Chimney takes his hands from his pockets and holds them up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying. You’re Jee’s uncle, you’re Denny’s uncle, but Chris? You’ve always been more than that to him.”

“Hen said the same thing.”

“And that is why we are twin flames.”

Buck rolls his eyes and finally gets up from his bed. They’re still for a moment, neither of them moving towards the kitchen despite the smell of coffee wafting in. Not cherry this morning, something nutty. Smells like espresso.

“You really think this is something I could do?” Buck asks. Something still sits heavy in his gut, and he swallows to keep it down.

Chimney finds his eye and won’t let him look away as he says, “Buckley, there isn’t a doubt in my mind. You getting a kid of your own is just the natural order of things. And I know Maddie would love for Jee and Baby Boy to have cousins their own age.”

Buck goes in for a hug and Chimney lets him with a laugh. They slap each other’s backs, and the sound echoes sharply off the walls.

Buck’s nose starts to tingle like he might cry, and he pulls away with a sniff. Chimney’s face is bright and warm when he says, “I love you, you know.”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “Me too, Chim.”

Another slap and they join the rest of the team in the kitchen. Three out of five plates on the counter are full of eggs and toast, and Ravi is making the coffee. Instant coffee from a jar. The strong stuff.

“Café Bustelo,” he says when Buck and Chimney come up. “Figured we could use it after the day we had yesterday.”

“Don’t make Buck’s too strong, Rav, I don’t like him drinking espresso with his heart,” Bobby says, pointing his spatula.

“We could say the same about you, Cap,” Hen says from the couch. She’s jacking the volume up on the news over in the lounge.

Bobby smiles. “Yeah, none of us should be drinking it, probably.”

Ravi spoons some of the instant espresso mix into a mug of hot water and hands it to Buck.

“Double shot, don't tell Cap,” he says, and Bobby raises his eyebrows over his shoulder.

Three plates turn to five, Bobby puts the jar of espresso back into the cabinet like that’ll sway them from having more, and they hold hands around the table for a quick grace.

“Amen,” Bobby says when he finishes, and everyone lets go.

There’s always a five-minute window between grace and the start of breakfast conversation where they try and shovel as much food down their throats as they can before the first bell goes off, a five-minute window that’s silent save for the sound of utensils against ceramic and the TV across the loft. Buck bounces his leg beneath the table and Hen kicks him as the window closes.

“Is this because of Iliana and her baby?” she says, wiping her mouth. Everyone relaxes into their chairs, having filled their bellies and caffeinated enough to be good to go if needed.

Buck shrugs. “It didn’t help. I-I think I’m gonna go see her today. After shift, obviously. I need to get my coat back.”

Bobby clicks his tongue. “Buck.”

“What! She was cold!”

No one believes that, but no one calls him out on it.

“Athena said Iliana had a rough night,” Bobby says, plate and coffee empty, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands on his stomach. “She’s fine, physically, but she’s having a hard time adjusting.”

“Understandable,” Hen says with a serene nod.

“It would do her good to see you, Buck,” Bobby says. “From what I heard, you did good in there with her. Made her comfortable.”

“She felt safe with you,” Chimney agrees, finishing his food and moving on to his coffee. “You make everyone feel safe, it’s why you’re so good with kids. And Ravioli over there.”

“Yep,” Ravi says. “I’d be honored to have you as my dad. Sorry, Dad.”

Buck preens into his toad-in-the-hole.

“Just make sure you get your coat back,” Bobby says. “I’m not ordering you another one.”

It’s Ravi’s turn to do the dishes, and while he’s up to his elbows in soap, bopping along to the music coming through his open-ear earbuds, everybody’s phones begin to ring one-by-one, like a clock shop that’s half a second out of sync.

Athena, Karen, Maddie, calling to say good morning before they head to work and to wish their spouses a safe shift, that they’ll see them when they get off tonight.

Eddie’s name flashes across Buck’s screen, and he answers on his way downstairs.

“Morning, Buck! Sleep okay?”

Buck wedges the phone between his shoulder and ear as he works on getting the bay doors open. It’s warm out, muggy. Looks like it might rain today.

“Slept okay, I guess.” He’s not sure if he should say anything about his recent revelation. He tells Eddie everything, but this feels too big. And yet not big enough to stretch all the way to Texas.

He’ll keep it to himself for now, just until he knows what he’s doing. The adoption process could take months, Buck knows this from Hen and Karen, so there’s no use in saying anything just yet. He’s not even sure if he’s going to adopt. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

“Still feeling off?”

Buck goes to sit on the tailboard of the ladder truck. “A little. But, uh, much better, I think.”

“You think?” There’s a smile in Eddie’s voice, and it makes Buck smile, too.

“I think I’ll feel better once I go to the hospital.”

“The hospital? Buck—”

“Not-not for me. For— I want to go visit Iliana. The girl from last night. I need to make sure her and her baby are okay.”

Eddie is quiet for a second, then he says, low, like it’s not for Buck to hear, “You’re a good guy.”

Buck’s cheeks grow warm. “Thanks. But I’m just, you know, doing my job.”

“You sound better, for what it’s worth.”

“Yeah,” Buck agrees. “Yeah, I think I’m gonna be okay.”

Eddie hangs up, claiming he has some errands to run and if he takes Buck with him then he won’t get anything done. Buck sits facing the open bay doors drinking the rest of his coffee, hands secure around the mug, eyes closed against the burgeoning sun.

A baby of his own. Just the thought loosens the thing in his chest. He tips his head and smiles at nothing.

The sound of feet on gravel reaches Buck’s ears and his eyes snap open. There’s nothing and no one, and he goes back in to shower before their first call.

When he gets out, clean and able to breathe a little easier, Hen meets him outside the bathroom with a business card held between her first two fingers. Her and Karen’s caseworker, she tells him. Diedra. She can help Buck get the ball rolling.

“I’m not even sure if adoption is what I’m going for,” he tells her, but takes the card anyway.

Hen shrugs. “Whatever you decide, it’s a foot in the door. It’s a long process, Buck. Just give her a call.”

Buck tucks the business card in a pocket on his duffel and pulls out his phone.

morning chris! have a good day. love you kid

The response is immediate.

Christopher Diaz 🐠
love u buck see u later lol

Christopher Diaz 🐠
*facetime

Buck is about to pocket his phone when he decides to finally respond to Connor and Kameron. Well, just Kameron. He gives Connor a thumbs-up reaction.

super cute kam. i think he pulls it off better than me

A trembling cry reaches Buck’s ears, and he thinks he’s just hearing things, his baby fever-addled brain playing tricks on him as he looks again at the photo of Connor and Kameron’s little boy, but then there’s the unmistakable rush of feet on the stairs and he looks out through the glass walls of the locker room to find the rest of the team, Bobby at the helm, racing to the open bay doors where he just was not fifteen minutes ago.

Buck hurries out in his socks, slipping against the polished floor. The cry gets louder as he passes the engines, and he slides to a stop when he reaches his team, crowded in a half-circle around something on the ground.

Hen stands from her crouch and looks back at him. Her eyes are wide behind her glasses.

Behind her, just over the threshold to the station, is Buck’s turnout coat laying in a careful bundle, the sleeves knotted tight. Tucked inside is a baby. Iliana’s baby.

“Oh, God.”

Buck pushes his way through and lifts the crying baby into his arms, coat and all. A folded piece of paper falls out and Chimney bends to pick it up. It’s her birth certificate from Cedars-Sinai, and every line is blank except for where the father’s name goes.

In a shaky scrawl that could be no one’s but that poor teenage girl’s, Iliana has written Firefighter Buckley.

They all look at him. Buck looks down at the baby, angry and red and so tiny in his turnout coat.

“Oh.”

“Okay,” Bobby says. “We have protocols for this, people. Check her out, make sure she doesn’t need immediate medical attention. I’ll get DCFS down here.”

He hurries off to his office, and Hen and Chimney corral Buck and the baby into the back of the ambulance. The shaking returns in full force, and it takes both of them to help him up.

Ravi stands at the open doors to the rig, hands on the top of his head. He blows out a breath and says over the baby’s sharp cries, “Has this happened before?”

“Once,” Chimney says. “Long time ago. Back with Gerrard.”

Hen scoffs. “I could only imagine what his reaction was.”

“He called Dispatch because he didn’t know what to do. Buck, put her down.”

Buck lays his bundled turnout coat on the gurney between his legs, and Hen and Chimney make quick work of unwrapping the baby. She’s naked save for a cloth diaper, and the stump of her umbilical cord is still clamped. She’s red in the face from crying.

“It’s okay,” Buck whispers, rubbing his thumb over the freckles on her eyebrow. “It’s okay, you’re safe, shh.”

She quiets down a little, her piercing cries soon turning into frustrated mewls. Hen blows on a stethoscope and presses it to her tiny, heaving chest. Chimney gently checks her over with a pair of nitrile gloves.

Buck’s heart feels like it’s going to burst through his chest.

“Can we go after her?” he says, and Hen gives him a knowing look.

“You know we can’t,” she says, voice thick with empathy.

The baby is perfectly healthy. And completely alone.

Buck has to swallow two, three times before he can speak again.

“Why would she do this? Why would she—”

Hen pulls off her gloves and lays a hand on Buck’s knee. “She was a homeless teenager, Buck. No family, no boyfriend, no job. She didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Chimney agrees. He’s smiling down at the baby, no doubt thinking about his own little boy that will be here in just a few short months. “Iliana made the right decision. Not too sure about putting your name down as the father, but. She is a teenager.”

Hen hits him on the arm good-naturedly.

“You know I’m just kidding,” Chimney says. “You said you wanted a baby, and here one is. Granted like a damn genie’s wish.”

Buck can’t stop rubbing his thumb over the baby’s eyebrow, and Hen has to pull his hand away when her delicate newborn skin starts to turn pink and irritated. She seems content, though. She’s breathing deeply and evenly now.

“You put her to sleep, Papa Buck,” Hen says, voice soft, and Buck’s stomach clenches like he might be sick.

Bobby appears in the open ambulance doors and puts a hand on Ravi’s shoulder, who’s been watching the whole thing nervously. “A DCFS rep is about thirty minutes out,” he says. “How is she?”

“She’s perfect,” Hen says with a smile. “But Iliana sprung her early, so she probably needs more time in the NICU.”

The tones sound, startling the baby into another round of agonizing cries.

A woman is threatening to jump from a highrise just a few blocks from the station, the disembodied voice tells them in the early hour.

“Okay, Buck, you’re man behind,” Bobby says. “Think you’ll be okay?”

Buck lifts the baby onto his shoulder. She screams into his ear and it makes him want to cry, too.

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing. His hand covers her entire back.

The station empties out and goes quiet, and it takes Buck longer than it should for him to be able to climb the stairs to the loft. His knees are trembling and his calf muscles feel weak, and his legs barely carry him to the couch before they’re giving out. He collapses in front of the dark TV and lowers the baby to his lap, much like how he had in the ambulance last night on the way to the hospital.

The ambulance. He should’ve snatched a blanket before the team left with it.

Buck pulls a throw blanket from the back of the couch and wraps the baby up in it, swaddling her best he can with what he’s learned from his sister. It satisfies her enough that she finally stops crying, sending the station into a heavy, ringing silence. Quiet now, she opens her cloudy newborn eyes and stares at Buck, or somewhere close to him. The exertion drains from her face, leaving behind her smooth, tan skin.

“Hi, sweetie,” he whispers, touching the tip of her button nose. “Hi. You okay now?”

She blinks, uneven like a cameleon. She’s so little, she doesn’t even know how to blink yet.

Buck is not going to cry. There’s no crying in firefighting, Eddie had told him jokingly one time, after the bombing. No crying. He’ll set the baby off again.

He thinks about his phone in his pocket and wonders if he should call Eddie.

He doesn’t get the chance to.

“Hello? Mr. Buckley?”

Buck stands from the couch with the baby cradled in the crook of his arm. Looking over the glass railing, he finds a woman in a button-up and pencil skirt standing in the circle of sunlight that’s started creeping over the station.

Has it really been thirty minutes already?

“Uh, c-coming!” He races down the stairs, getting flashbacks to that call with the baby that had been stuck in the wall. Quickly and carefully.

The woman immediately reaches for the baby, and Buck takes an instinctive step back.

“I think she fell asleep.”

“That’s okay, the ride to the hospital is short.”

“The hospital?” The baby wrinkles her nose, like she doesn’t want to go back there, either. “But she— She’s okay.”

“I know,” the woman says gently, and she carefully pries the throw blanket from Buck’s arms. “But she’s a preemie, Mr. Buckley. She needs to be in the NICU.”

Right. Hen said the same thing.

Buck crosses his arms and then uncrosses them. He doesn’t know what to do with them now that he doesn’t have the baby to hold. “Oh,” he says. The woman starts off towards her car, parked just outside the bay doors for a quick getaway. “She, uh, she doesn’t have any clothes, though.”

The SUV’s trunk opens and the DCFS representative makes quick work of changing the baby’s diaper and dressing her in a newborn onesie and hat, like she’s done this a million times before. Like she knows what she’s doing and Buck doesn’t.

She hands him the throw blanket, now folded up neatly and still warm. Buck hugs it to his chest.

“Thank you for keeping her company, Mr. Buckley.” The woman’s smile is small, professional. She buckles the baby into a backward-facing carseat and shuts the door. Inside, she wakes up and begins to cry. Buck can feel his heart squeeze in his chest at the muffled sound.

“Is she—”

“Is this the birth certificate?” She bends and picks up the folded piece of paper from the cement floor, dropped in the panic of getting the baby checked out and then the ensuing panic of the call. “Your captain told me—”

She reads it, then looks up at Buck. Buck shifts where he stands, the back of his neck warm. The look on her face is unreadable.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Baby Girl Alvarez will probably be with Cedars until she gets placed.” The birth certificate is tucked into a pocket on her skirt. “And NICU babies always need visitors.”

And then the woman is gone, tearing out from the station and towards the hospital, leaving Buck, quite literally, in the dust.

The 118 returns to find Buck in the gym. Sitting, waiting. Wringing his hands in his lap until his knuckles ache.

Bobby is the first one out, and his face is drawn, like the brief call aged him a decade.

“Bobby—” Buck stands. “Is it okay if I—”

Ravi hurries off to the bathroom and Chimney up to the kitchen, taking two stairs at a time. Hen comes over and wraps Buck in a hug.

“Uh. Hen?”

Bobby wipes his hand down his face, shaking his head. Buck gets a bad feeling, suddenly. A worse feeling than what he’s been feeling since yesterday morning.

Hen pulls back, her hands squeezing Buck’s elbows. Carefully, she says, “It was Iliana.”

His stomach plummets to his toes. Buck sits back down, and Hen goes with him, kneeling at his side. “What?” he breathes.

She frowns, then looks over her shoulder at Bobby. “She, uh. She was gone before we got there. There was nothing we could do.”

Buck’s hands begin to shake again, and this time they don’t stop. His throat constricts painfully around a gagging swallow and he says again, “What?”

Bobby murmurs something about paperwork and disappears to his office.

“She…” Buck sniffs and scrunches his nose, like that will stave off any tears. “She killed herself?”

“I’m so sorry,” Hen says quietly, wrapping her hands around Buck’s trembling knees. “I’m so sorry, Buck, but at least she— At least she did the right thing. With her baby.”

The baby, who doesn’t have a single living family member left in this world other than a teen boy in Florida that doesn’t—and probably won’t ever—know she exists.

Buck thinks about his name on the birth certificate, messily scrawled by the hand of a young girl who knew him for less than an hour but who trusted him enough to try and leave her child with him, and something in his chest cracks open, something delicate and already spiderwebbed.

“Hen?” he cries.

“I know, I know.”

“Did she—” He swallows, and it almost hurts. “Did Iliana leave a—a note? Anything?”

Hen reaches up and brushes a stray tear from his cheek. Her smile is sad. “Yeah, Buck. I think the birth certificate was the note.”

And then the thing that he’s been waiting to happen for the last twenty-four hours finally happens: He has a panic attack.

It comes on like a dam breaking, suddenly and violently. He pitches forward into Hen’s neck with an ugly noise, and she wraps her arms around him best she can with the awkward angle.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she keeps repeating, but it just makes Buck cry harder. He wants to hop in his truck and rush to Cedars-Sinai, he wants to call Eddie. He wants to be able to breathe.

“Why—” He gasps. “Why did she do that? Hen—”

“I know.”

“She had so many options, she could’ve— We could’ve— We could’ve helped her. She had the nurses, and—and Athena was supposed to stop by to see her this morning—”

Hen just holds him, stifling her own tears in his hair.

“I have to see the baby. I have to— She put my name on the birth certificate, Hen—”

“Buck…” Hen kisses behind his ear and pulls back to look him in the eye. “A birth certificate isn’t legally binding unless you’re married. There’s paternity acknowledgments, court orders—” She sighs, and it feels like a bullet to the chest. It feels like a finality. “Right now, you don’t have any ties to that baby.”

He swallows down a strangled noise. He suddenly feels simultaneously very young and so, so old. “But she wanted me.”

“But she didn’t put you in a will and testament. You can see the baby, but you can’t have her. Not yet.”

Buck wants to shake Hen off, wants to tear himself from her hold and yell at her, tell her she’s being unfair. Cruel. Not understanding him or Iliana or the situation as a whole.

But he knows that she’s right, and she knows that in Buck’s current state, he would easily do something to mess up any chance of him ever getting custody of that baby. She knows better than anyone in this firehouse that things like this take time, and patience, and a clear head. Buck does not have a clear head right now. Right now, he’s just a name on a piece of paper, and not even the paper that matters.

“Okay,” he eventually says. “But I still need to see her.”

“What you need,” Hen says, rubbing his knees again, “is to breathe for me. Okay? And maybe go take a nap.”

“But the baby—”

“Is safe with some of the best nurses and doctors in the state. She’ll be fine.”

Iliana could’ve been fine too.

Buck just nods, and lets Hen corral him to the bunkroom.

Eddie has never been so glad to be stuck in LA traffic. If he wasn’t getting caught behind a Cybertruck or an armored vehicle or an ambulance every five minutes, he would’ve gotten pulled over for speeding before they even left the rental place, and that would ruin everything he’s attempting to speed towards.

“Dad. You’re going to break the steering wheel.”

He glances at Christopher in the passenger seat, whose nose has been buried in his phone since touching down. Probably texting Denny and all the friends he hasn’t seen in months. Eddie knows how he feels; the anticipation is why he’s squeezing the life out of the steering wheel.

He lets go and shakes out his hands. “Sorry. I guess I’m nervous.”

Christopher quirks an eyebrow but still doesn’t spare him a glance. “Buck is—probably fine, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Behind another ambulance now, probably offline for lunch. Eddie presses his knuckles into Christopher’s knee to get him to look at him. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t still need us.”

The station is quiet when they breach the bay doors, suspiciously so. The clack of Christopher’s crutches echo off the polished floor like the sharp rap of high heels down a school hallway, loud and imposing.

“Where is everyone?” he asks, looking around over his glasses.

Eddie puts a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know, kid. Doesn’t look like they’re out on a call…”

“Eddie?”

Chimney looks down at them from over the glass barrier to the loft, and he doesn’t look pleased. He comes down the stairs with his hands in his pockets, and as he gets closer, Eddie notices how drawn he looks. He’s pale, and his eyes are watery. He hugs Eddie for what feels like a minute straight, and then he hugs Christopher just as long.

“Chim, man, what’s going on?”

Chimney sighs and slaps his hands down on his thighs. “Bad call this morning. This kid—”

He glances at Christopher, but decides he’s old enough to hear the grisly details. He’s grown a hell of a lot since moving back to El Paso, so much so that Eddie can barely stand to think about it some days.

“A young girl killed herself this morning, just a few blocks from the station,” he goes on. “First call of the day. We’re all taking it pretty hard.”

“That sucks,” Christopher says, looking as earnest as ever, even with his teenaged vocabulary. “I’m sorry, Chimney.”

Chimney squeezes his shoulder. “Yeah, kid, I am too. I’m especially sorry since we just delivered her baby last night.”

Eddie looks at him sharply. “What?”

“Postpartum depression,” Christopher says sagely. “That can be—difficult.”

“I think it was a little more complicated than that—”

“Chim,” Eddie interrupts. “She wasn’t a high school kid, was she? Uh, that Iliana girl?”

Chimney rubs the back of his neck and looks down at his boots. “Buck told you, huh?”

“Yeah, before she killed herself.”

Eddie takes the stairs to the loft two at a time, his heart pounding at the base of his throat. Ravi is in the kitchen when he reaches the top, and he looks a little happier to see Eddie than Chimney had.

“Eddie? Chris? What are you guys doing here? I mean, not that I’m not happy to see you—”

“Ravi.”

Hen appears in the doorway to the bunkroom, finger to her lips. When she spots Eddie and Christopher, her face drops.

“I should’ve known you two were gonna show up,” she says, crossing the loft with her arms out. Eddie wraps her up in a hug. “You always have a sixth sense when it comes to Buck.”

“EBP,” Christopher says, going to sit on the couch. “Extrabuck perception.”

“That was good,” Ravi says, quieter now.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t know,” Eddie says to Hen, holding onto her hands for a moment longer before letting go. She, too, looks drawn. “He just… I don’t know, seemed a little off-kilter last night. Figured he could use a visit from us.”

Hen snorts and looks over at Christopher on the couch, then towards the bunkroom. “Yeah, he was pretty off-kilter all day yesterday. He was missing you guys pretty bad.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, following her eyes. “We miss him too.”

“Chris, you want food?” Ravi says from the kitchen, and Christopher hoists himself from the couch, saying, “I always want food.”

“Is he okay?” Eddie says, resisting the urge to clench his fists until they ache.

Hen lifts her eyebrows. “Well, he lost a patient and gained a baby this morning. He’s not doing great.”

“Gained a— What? What do you mean?”

“I mean that Iliana, the girl we helped last night, put Buck’s name on her baby’s birth certificate before she—” She sighs, looking again towards the bunkroom.

“God, Buck.”

The déjà vu hits him hard and fast, and he’s momentarily brought back to that hospital room, and then farther back to his attorney’s office. What Eddie doesn’t tell Hen is that he understands why Iliana did what she did, because he did the same thing five years ago. A birth certificate isn’t legally binding the way a will is, but the ask is the same. Custody of a child in the event of an untimely death, presented to Buck not once, but twice now. The responsibility, the obligation, would be a lot for anyone. He was beside himself when Eddie had offered up Christopher, and Eddie wasn’t even dead yet.

“Yep. He ended up having a panic attack. Not bad enough to take us offline for an in-house emergency, but enough to send him to bed. I think you should take him home, Eddie.”

Eddie is already moving towards the bunkroom, pushing in like he never even left. It’s pitch-black and deathly silent, and he would think it was empty if not for the mountainous silhouette on one of the far beds. He sits down gently at Buck’s side and puts a hand on his arm. He’s asleep but he’s trembling, like there’s a current running beneath his skin even while unconscious.

“Buck.”

Buck stirs, and he looks back at Eddie. Even in the dark, Eddie can see the bags under his eyes, purple like twin bruises. He puts a hand on the top of his head.

“Oh, bud.”

“Eddie?” His voice is scratchy and thick, and he clears his throat. “What—”

His face drops and he erupts into silent tears, and Eddie doesn’t waste a second climbing fully into the bed and pulling Buck to his chest. Buck turns in his arms and puts his face into Eddie’s neck, clinging to the front of his shirt like a child.

Eddie lets him grab and grope and shake. He just holds him, tight the way he knows Buck needs right now. He holds him until he grows quiet and still.

“What are you doing here?” Buck eventually says, voice frayed. “It hasn’t— It hasn’t even been that long—”

Eddie tugs at his unruly curls. “We were about to board when I called you earlier.”

“We?”

“Chris is out there chowing down with Ravi.”

The corners of Buck’s mouth turn down, and he sniffs to keep another round of tears at bay. “Oh. Why?”

“I knew something was up on the phone last night.”

The frown turns into a shaky smile, and he sniffs again. “Ah, you always do.”

Eddie puts two fingers to the side of Buck's neck, and when he's satisfied by what he finds there, he sits up in the bed, pulling away from Buck to look him in the eye.

“What do you need?” he asks steadily.

Buck blinks his swollen, bloodshot eyes, then he reaches for Eddie's hand. He squeezes his knuckles in answer.

“You already have me,” Eddie says, freeing his thumb from Buck’s grip to return the squeeze. “What else?”

“I—I want to see the baby. Iliana's baby. She's all alone, Eddie.”

Eddie looks at him a second longer, then nods. “Okay,” he says, getting off the bed and taking Buck with him.

He helps him lace up his boots, then they wash up in the bathroom together, splashing water over their tired faces. The rest of the team, Christopher included, are eating at the table, and their eyes immediately land on Buck. Buck turns red in the face and gives a shy wave.

Eddie points a thumbs-up at his son. “You’re good here for a while, mijo?”

Christopher flaps his hand. “Yeah, Dad.”

Bobby is waiting for them when they get down to the locker room, sitting on one of the benches with his hands clasped between his knees. He looks almost as wrecked as Buck. These days, it takes a lot to break their captain, and the sight leaves Eddie uneasy.

“Eddie,” he says, standing. Eddie can hear the unmistakable clatter of his rosary beads shifting in his pocket. A handshake turns into a hug, which turns into Bobby laughing wetly and joking, “I knew you’d be back.”

Eddie can’t help glancing at Buck. “Yeah, so did the captain at El Paso Fire.”

Bobby goes for Buck next, cupping a hand around the back of his neck and ducking to catch his eye. “You okay, kid?”

Buck shrugs. He looks smaller than usual, and that, too, makes Eddie uneasy. He has a sneaking suspicion that this visit is going to turn into more than just a visit.

“I will be. Eddie’s taking me to see the baby.”

Bobby flicks his eyebrows and smiles a bit more genuinely. He claps his hand on Buck’s shoulder before pulling away. “That’s good. She’ll be glad to see you again.”

And he’s completely serious, is the thing.

With Buck’s work duffel thrown into the back of the rental car, Eddie drives them to Cedars-Sinai, where they’re both cleared to enter the NICU after a quick call to Captain Nash.

A woman is standing over Baby Girl Alvarez’s bassinet when they’re brought in, one that’s smartly dressed and vaguely familiar to Eddie.

“Mr. Buckley!” she says, smiling, as she turns to face them. “I was just going to stop by the firehouse to see you. I understand we have some things to discuss.”

Buck looks at Eddie, then at the woman, his brows furrowed. “Diedra, uh, h-hi. Uh, we do?”

Diedra. Hen and Karen’s caseworker.

Diedra nods, clasping her hands in front of her. “We do. Hen Wilson gave me a call this morning and explained the situation with this little girl here, and her mom. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Buck leans his shoulder into Eddie’s, and Eddie puts a hand on his lower back, both actions unconscious ones, like they were never even apart.

“Well, I–I didn’t know her very well. We just delivered her baby.”

Diedra glances back at the baby, tiny and swaddled and fast asleep in her glass bassinet. “That seems to have been good enough for Iliana.”

Buck swallows audibly and shifts from foot to foot. Eddie can feel that current beneath his skin again, and he slides his hand up between his shoulderblades, patting gently.

“What do you mean?” His voice may not betray him to Diedra, but to Eddie it reveals everything. Cautiously hopeful and trying to hide it. Eddie would know what Buck was thinking without him even opening his mouth.

“I mean my office tried to get in contact with the father, and his family, and none of them wanted anything to do with the baby. She has no one.” Diedra smiles then, wide and sparkling. “Except for you, Mr. Buckley.”

A nurse sweeps into the room in bright pink scrubs and Crocs to match that are covered in what looks like tiny Care Bears. She lights up when she sees Buck, and she touches his arm briefly on her way to the baby.

“We’ve been waiting for you to come back,” she says as she lifts the baby from her bassinet. “Sit, sit. This angel is in need of some skin-to-skin.”

Diedra looks faintly amused, and she flicks her hand at Buck. “Well? Get that shirt off, Firefighter.”

Buck blanches, and looks to Eddie. Eddie shrugs and holds his hand out for his jacket. He hands it over, then pulls his shirt over his head by the back of the collar and stuffs it into the pocket of his slacks.

“Where do I—”

He’s ushered into the padded rocking chair in the corner of the room and all but falls into it. The nurse stands over him, baby held out in one arm like she’s done this a million times before, and quirks an eyebrow at him.

From behind her mask, she tells Buck, “Relax.”

He relaxes. Or, he tries to. Eddie goes to stand at his side, getting a brief flashback to that crazy first week of Christopher’s life when he puts a hand on Buck’s tense shoulder, before his leave was over when Shannon practically lived in the rocking chair his mother had gotten them for the nursery. Buck looks at him the way she had then, wide-eyed, exhausted, terrified, but above all, excited.

As the nurse expertly unwraps the baby from her swaddle one-handed, revealing a fat little newborn belly topped with the stump of her umbilical cord and the tiniest diaper Eddie has ever seen, she leans in to tell Buck, “Iliana didn’t say much when she came in last night, but after Sergeant Grant left, she was asking everyone about you.”

The baby is placed on his chest, looking impossibly small amongst the wiry hair and tattoos, and the nurse takes Buck’s hands and wraps one around her bottom and places the other on her back. Her little wrinkled legs scrunch up beneath her, and her eyes roll beneath their lids. She’s almost completely enveloped just by his hands.

Eddie’s nose begins to tingle, and he prays that he’s not going to be the next one to start crying.

“You’re a natural,” the nurse says, adjusting the pink knit cap over the baby’s ears.

Buck hikes her up beneath his chin a little, and blinks wetly at the nurse, who’s beaming from behind her mask.

“She, uh, s-she was?”

“The ED and ICU had many good things to say about you.”

Buck snorts and leans his head back against the rocking chair. The tension drains from his shoulders, and he looks more relaxed than Eddie has seen him in a long time, maybe before he left for El Paso. Or even before Christopher left. The only evidence of a panic attack in the lines of his body live in his swollen eyes and his bitten-raw bottom lip. He looks completely at home with a baby in his arms, which is something Eddie has always known about him, but now it comes with a weightiness to it.

His face drops, and he looks down his nose at the dozing baby girl on his chest, who looks equally at home beneath his chin. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “About Iliana.”

The nurse sniffs and adjusts the baby’s hat one more time. “So am I.” She begins backing towards the door. Eddie notices the bright sheen to her eyes, even in the dim lighting of the NICU. “Are you all good here?”

Buck looks again at the baby, who’s turned her head on his chest. He rubs at the corner of her eye with his thumb, a gentle sweeping motion like a metronome on the slowest setting. It might just be the lighting, but she looks like she might have a birthmark there. Something twists in Eddie’s stomach.

“We’re perfect,” Buck says, and she nods.

“I’ll be back in twenty to feed her.”

When it’s just the three of them again, four if you count the baby, who takes up so much space and yet none at all, Diedra claps her hands together silently.

“What I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Buckley—”

“Buck,” he amends.

Diedra just smiles. “Buck. Have you ever heard of a kinship placement?”

Buck glances at Eddie, and Eddie moves his hand from his bare shoulder to the crown of his head.

“I mean, yeah. I think so. But—” He furrows his eyebrows. “I don’t have any ties to the baby.”

It sounds like he’s repeating something someone has told him, and it sounds like he doesn’t want to believe it.

“Iliana just put my name on the birth certificate. It doesn’t— It doesn’t really mean anything.”

There it is again, that cautious hope.

“No,” Diedra agrees. “But the power of suggestion can be significant in cases like these. Iliana trusted you enough to want to leave her baby to you. We don’t take that lightly.”

Her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket, and she takes it out, glances at the screen, silences it, and returns it. She has to go, Eddie can see it in the downturn of her mouth.

“Plus, you have a lot of people that can vouch for you, Buck. A lot. I think you’ll have a pretty good chance if this is something you want.”

Buck just stares.

“Thank you,” Eddie says for him, gripping his hair lightly.

Diedra starts for the door, and Buck finds his voice just before she’s about to head out.

“I-I-I do. I want her.”

She smiles, tapping her fingers on the doorframe. “Noted. In the meantime, the Wilsons offered to take her in when she’s discharged in a few days. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to see her as often as you like while we get everything sorted.”

“Uh— What do I do now?”

“Hold that baby until they kick you out. And then wait for my call.”

When she’s gone, Buck looks up at Eddie with huge eyes.

“Eddie.”

“I know, bud.”

“I think I’m having a baby.”

“Yeah, I think you are too.”

He swallows and holds the baby a little tighter. She stays fast asleep. “All by myself.”

Eddie crouches to his level and tips his head. He balances himself with a hand on Buck’s knee. “Not really. You have— Well, everyone. And you have me. You’ll always have me, Buck.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. Even when I’m a thousand miles away. Which…”

Him and Christopher have been talking a lot since he moved back in with Eddie, some things he isn’t ready to admit to anyone other than his kid, but also about moving back to LA. He just wasn’t expecting to happen so fast, nor so soon.

“Is your couch still free?”

Buck’s eyes fly over his face. “What?” he says.

“The master is big enough for a crib, so Chris can keep his room. He loves babies, but I don’t think he’ll love sleeping with one.”

Buck is still staring. A little dumbly, he says, “The bed is big enough too. For— For us, I mean.”

Eddie’s own sort of cautious hope fills up the space around his rabbiting heart. Maybe they both had their own revelations while Eddie was gone. What do they usually say about absence?

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Good.” Eddie puts a tentative hand on the back of Buck’s, both of theirs overlapping the baby. He can feel her gentle breathing, and it makes him suddenly brave. “I didn’t want to, anyway.”

The baby begins to fuss, rooting her little button nose into the base of Buck’s throat, and he laughs.

“Okay, okay.” He puts his lips to her cheek, then sticks his nose behind her ear, inhaling. “Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff. Eddie, get in here.”

Eddie leans in and sniffs that baby smell he’s all-too familiar with. Kissing her on the cheek too, he says, “Just a little something to take the edge off.”

When she settles again, falling back into a snuffling sleep in her home under Buck’s scruffy chin, he looks at Eddie with eyes that are clear and present. Still swollen, but bright.

“She doesn’t even have a name.”

“There’s still time,” Eddie says, and with the way Buck’s bright eyes linger on him, he knows he understands the double entendre. They’ve always been pretty good at communicating without even having to open their mouths.

They have time.